


Soft people with soft hands (Roman hands)

by lettertoelise



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Clarke is a lost soul, F/M, Finding their way back to one another, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Pining, Romance, Roomates, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 12:26:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8533051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettertoelise/pseuds/lettertoelise
Summary: “What are you doing?”  Clarke hisses under her breath as she pulls him conspiratorially into her space, the brush of their shoulders a tease of proximity.Bellamy’s eyes glint under the harsh fluorescent lighting and his smile sits puckish and lopsided on his face, all dimple.  “I’m busting you out of here.”She scoffs, “To do what?” and he laughs.  It’s like thunder in his chest.“Whatever the hell we want.” Or the one where they carry the broken pieces of one another in their pockets.





	1. Falling Together

**Author's Note:**

> This work has been long in coming. Many thanks to my crack team of super betas/support network, AmandaRex, EzWriter, and my pal J. Hugs to you all.

The one thing Clarke cannot deny about the apartment is the light.  She can almost stand in the windows and they face the street instead of the building adjacent, so that’s a plus.  But it’s literally three rooms and a toilet, high ceilings with crumbling plaster, dinge-colored walls, and the one terrifyingly medieval looking radiator in the corner of the ‘living room’.  

 

Bellamy leans against the wall, arms crossed, watching her with amusement as he offers the occasional snide remark.  “Octavia said you were desperate.”

 

She shrugs, “I  _ am _ desperate.  But how the hell do you fit two people in this shoebox?” 

 

He is chuckling as he flicks his head to throw the dark hair out of his eyes.  “Miller and I split the bedroom and made this into a living room.  Worked fine.”

 

The walls are bowing out slightly, the ancient drywall cracked, plastered-over and cracked again.  The bedroom itself is surprisingly large, Bellamy’s full size mattress shoved into the corner and surrounded by stacks of books and notepads.  He’s zip-tied plastic crates together in the corner to form some sort of makeshift storage unit with clothing neatly folded inside and a few picture frames teetering on top.  

 

The sun struggles to pass through the large sheet he’s hung over the one window by his bed, casting the room in a soft blue light, almost filtered. Somehow, it even looks cozy.  

 

It’s not like she wanted to move, but staying with Finn was out of the question.  Clarke could still feel the sting of Raven’s hand across her cheek and the burn of rage in her eyes - how was she to know her boyfriend had a girlfriend?  So she’d thrown her things in her duffel and bolted, showing up drenched and crying on the doorstep of the only other person she knew in this damn city.  And when Lincoln, the gym teacher at her school, had taken her inside, his girlfriend Octavia making her tea, she’d only cried harder at their kindness.  

 

It was how she’s ended up on Bellamy’s couch, trying to find a spot that doesn’t sag and seriously considering making a home in this place.  But the rent is good, and despite the sass in his smile, he seems easy going and clean, pretty much all a girl could want in a roommate.      

 

“So why did your last roommate move out?  Are you unbearable to live with?” Clarke asks, looking up over the mug of coffee Bellamy had handed her.  He’s moved to sit on the floor, back against the wall as he props elbows on his knees and shakes his head.

 

“Yes, actually, but that’s not why Miller left,” he says and he grins.  “He moved in with his boyfriend, so I’ve been flying solo ever since.  Not going to lie, though, I miss the help with the rent.”   

 

Bellamy is handsome when he is smiling.  And when he isn’t.  There is a dusting of freckles over the bronze of his nose and a playfulness in the slide of his jaw.  In some ways, he almost resembles his sister, Octavia, except pulsing with a quieter sort of intensity, like the pressure of a gaze unrealized until it’s gone.

 

“So what’s your story then?”  His voice is rough and deep against the insular silence of the apartment.  

 

“Bad break up.”  Clarke isn’t ready to give details.  Not yet.  But Bellamy’s expression is no longer baiting and his eyes have softened.  He nods and it’s quiet again except for the faint hollar of car horns and the murmur of voices from the street.  

 

Clarke sighs and scans the room once more, secretly hoping the couch doesn’t have bedbugs.  Honestly, this place  _ seems _ a bit like it might, but she is weighing her options and coming up short.  

 

“So how soon can I move in?”

  
  


***

 

Clarke should be surprised when she runs into Raven a week later.  But she isn’t.  Because this is the sort of shit that would happen to Clarke Griffin, a random encounter with the girl whose relationship she destroyed - so she’s used to it.  

 

Clarke’s got her back up against a tree in the park, tracing the horizon with her pencil, and suddenly Raven Reyes is compromising her view, standing with a hand on one hip and glaring down at the sketch pad in her lap.    

 

“I’m sorry I slapped you,” she says, voice flat.  Clarke squints up at her.  

 

“I’m sorry I slept with your boyfriend.”

 

“He’s not my boyfriend anymore.”  Raven shrugs and plops down on the grass, long ponytail swinging behind her.  She’s easily the most beautiful woman Clarke has ever seen, dark eyes in an inquisitive face, but she stretches her legs out and tips her head back to drink in the sun, and Clarke thinks she could be a goddess.  Finn is a fool.  

 

“You deserve better.”  

 

“Yeah.  I know.”

 

***

 

It happens slowly.  Clarke moves in on a Tuesday with a duffel bag and a few small boxes.  It seems reasonable, Bellamy thinks, until her things start to multiply.  Soon there is a decorative bowl on his kitchen table, and baskets (Bellamy fucking hates baskets) start appearing on his counter and by the couch.  She’s hung a clothesline between their two mattresses across which she’s draped some godawful yellow curtain and he doesn’t know how, but her clothes are  _ everywhere _ like she’s leaving some sort of trail but doesn’t have the decency to be naked at the end.   

 

They argue constantly, because she can’t work while his music is playing and he can’t focus with her voice in his ears.  It’s like she thinks cleaning means hiding his notepads and yet she scolds him when he collects all her shit and dumps it on her bed.   

 

And for the first week after she moves in, she cries everyday but thinks he doesn’t notice.  He hears her bawling from the bedroom, sobs smothered by blankets and pillows, and when she emerges, eyes red and puffy, he just shrugs and offers to make her something to eat.  Because he grew up raising his mother and his sister and it didn’t take long to figure out that’s what you  _ do _ .  

 

It isn’t until Bellamy comes home to find her day drunk, practically hanging off the fire escape, that he thinks he might need to switch tactics.  When he drags himself down next to her, Clarke’s swinging a bottle loosely between her fingers and laughing at the sky.  

 

“What the hell is going on with you?” he asks, and she cackles and tips the bottle back between her lips.  

 

“How did I end up here?” Clarke asks, her tone rich and coarse with alcohol.    

 

Her shoulders are tense like she’s expecting him to engage, but he just leans back into the heels of his hands and squints out over the city.  

 

“Maybe you expect too much,” he says eventually.  Her blue eyes fix on him - he feels like he’s being measured.  

 

“It’s possible.”  There’s a pause before she continues.  “I graduated at the top of my class with two majors.  I’m the first one to arrive in my classroom and the last one to leave.  I even help the department raise money to finance its own art supplies.  I do everything I’m supposed to do.”

 

“Maybe that’s the problem.”

 

She smirks, surprised.  “Maybe.”

 

The seasons are changing and the weather is cool.  Clarke shivers, pulling her arms up around her shoulders as if suddenly she is aware of the cold.  She is like this sometimes, a fortress with glass walls, and Bellamy stands and braces her elbow as she rises to her feet.  “Come on,” he says, “I’ll make you something to soak up all that alcohol.”

 

But Clarke doesn’t move.  She shakes him off with a determined expression, her brow knit at the center.  “Bellamy.”  Her voice is serious.  “Stop trying to take care of me.”

 

Clarke is at least a head shorter than him but she makes herself taller with the proud tilt of her chin.  It’s like a challenge and he wants to bristle but he finds he can’t commit.  So Bellamy smirks instead.  

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Princess,”  he says, and he’s not sure where the nickname comes from, but she cringes and he thinks he might keep it.  

 

Bellamy makes himself scrambled eggs with a some peppers thrown in for color and when she comes inside a moment later to scoop some on a plate and settle into the couch, Bellamy does his best to hide his grin. (It doesn’t work.)   

 

***

 

It’s getting easier, waking up without Finn.  Clarke is starting to forget the way she used to laugh when he would first pull away from the pillow, long brown hair angry and twisting in every direction, the soft touch of his fingers in the dim morning light.  Finn Collins is becoming a memory, every day sinking like a sunset into the horizon.  

 

From her side of the yellow curtain, she can hear every page turn, every scratch of Bellamy’s pen.  She can hear him curse when he spills coffee on himself (which is every day).  She can even hear the steady sound of his breathing as she lies awake and counts the cracks on the ceiling.  

 

Arguments are their primary source of interaction.  But they just sort of orbit the same spaces, bumping into one another on the way to the kitchen or the shower, Clarke wrapped in her fuzzy blue bathrobe and Bellamy, towel around his waist and a toothbrush hanging lazily from his mouth.   He curses when he trips over her easel and she bitterly defends her use of scented candles.  She pours two cups of coffee in the morning instead of one, and he packs her a lunch. (Sometimes he writes trivia on her napkin and it makes her smile.  Not that she’d admit it.)  

 

Clarke’s inadvertently memorizing his patterns - what time he meets Lincoln at the gym on the weekends, which days he works landscaping, the evenings he usually works a shift at the bar.  She knows Bellamy likes to wake up with the sun and write until she stumbles into the kitchen, bleary eyed and desperate for caffeine.  She tries to peek over his shoulder the same way he tries to glance at her sketchbook, and it’s almost playful.  Almost.  

And honestly, he is terrible at not feeding her, probably somewhat encouraged by her inability to romance the ancient gas stove in the kitchen.  But Clarke is tired of everything tasting of charcoal, so she stops complaining. 

 

When she brings Raven home, the two of them disheveled and sweaty from hauling an abandoned bookshelf up the stairs, Bellamy is draped leisurely over the couch under a book, dark glasses sliding down his nose.  He sits up when they enter, the laughter and grunting presumably catching his attention.

 

Clarke lets the base of the thing rest on the floor and stands to brush the sweat off of her forehead.  “I got you a surprise.”

 

Bellamy raises an eyebrow.

 

“I mean, I found it by the dumpster, but I thought that might actually appeal to you.  It fits with the whole vibe you’ve got going on here.”

 

“Yeah, I actually prefer roadside furniture to dumpster,” he deadpans, folding up his glasses and rising to his feet.  “But, um, thanks.”  

 

He ducks to rub the back of his neck, but Clarke spots the smile anyway, delicately unfolding from the corners of his mouth.  It’s like a secret.

 

“And this is Raven,” she almost forgets, and gestures to her friend, who is currently watching the scene with interest, a hand perched thoughtfully on one hip.  It’s her signature move.  

 

“Yeah,” he says casually.   “We’ve met.”   

 

Clarke turns to Raven and she just shrugs, a shit eating grin stretched across her face and the pieces come together. 

 

“Oh.”  Then she rallies.  “ _ Oh.” _

 

“After the thing with Finn,” Raven says and, for her part, seems unfazed, and they wipe down the shelves while Bellamy retrieves water from the kitchen and forces it on them.  

 

“I don’t need you both passing out,” he insists, and the concern he has for their hydration would be endearing if it weren’t also annoying.  Clarke takes a sip to shut him up and laughs.  

 

But she can’t help but notice how he sneaks the bookshelf to his end of the bedroom, collecting the piles of books from the floor to organize them in straight rows, notepads all stacked neatly on the top shelf by a bowl of pens.  It makes her smile, a  _ real _ smile - one that lingers for days despite the horrible art history papers she’s stuck grading or the  voicemail from her mother.  And she realizes it’s a feeling she’s missed.    

 

***  

Clarke is always covered in paint.  It’s one of the first things Bellamy notices about her after she moves in.  She’s prowling the apartment in search of her phone (misplaced at least three times a day) and there are streaks of blue on the back of her elbow and down the length of her neck. 

 

“I thought the the goal was to get the paint on the canvas,” he teases and she sticks out her tongue, almost pouncing on him a moment later when she spies her phone by his elbow.

 

It doesn’t surprise him when he sees she’s washed a section of their living room wall, delicate pencil lines sweeping softly against the uneven surface.  He traces them when she’s not looking, intrigued, except that she is short and there is a definitive stopping point at the edge of her reach where the wall  remains murky and blank. 

 

Bellamy scolds her one afternoon when she’s reaching to the ceiling with a sponge, dangling from some rickety stool and she rolls her eyes and promises not to do it again.  At least not when he’s looking.    

 

He buys her a step ladder on his way home from work and he has to get the nicer model because it’s safer.  And he might also get her a small desk lamp to put by her bed (so she’ll stop stumbling into things in the dark) and some paint thinner (because artists totally use that stuff), so when Octavia helps him load everything into the back of Lincoln’s truck, she is definitely not laughing at him.

 

“You could just ask her on a date,” Octavia says, but Bellamy shrugs it off.

 

“Might take a while to work up to that.  Most of our conversations are just strings of expletives.”    

 

Octavia rolls her eyes and slams the tailgate closed.  “Whatever you say, big brother.” 

 

He leaves the lamp by Clarke’s bed, stopping for a moment to appreciate the prints she’s hung on the wall, the corkboard littered with pictures and old concert tickets.  There are only a few discarded sketches crumpled in the corner and the whole space is surprisingly tidy, considering it’s  _ Clarke _ .  But it feels almost too intimate to stand there too long, like the fondness unfurling in his chest isn’t welcome in this space.  Not yet.  So he escapes to putter around the apartment anxiously until she gets home.

 

Clarke Griffin has two types of smiles.  One is small - delicate and closed, lips pressed together at the edges in a soft line.  It’s the one she uses most days, when she’s sleepwalking through life, all duty but no soul.  But her other smile,  _ that _ is his favorite.  It’s wide and all teeth, accentuating the dimple in her chin and spreading to her eyes.  It’s the sort of smile that belongs to a person surprised with their own happiness, like she’s unsure how she got there.  

 

It’s this smile she wears when she discovers her ladder, leaning against the wall next to the awkward can of paint thinner.  Bellamy is actually looking anywhere but in her direction, suddenly sheepish, as though he hasn’t been pacing in anticipation of this moment for at least an hour.  She claps her hands in excitement and beams at him, pressing a kiss to his cheek, but he does his best to shrug it off.  Because he’s not at all invested in the warmth of her lips on his skin or the brush of her fingers against his chest.  

 

“For safety,” he emphasizes.  

 

She’s still smiling, and she echoes, “For safety.”

 

***

Bellamy grunts when he opens the door to the apartment, banging it against the bag and shoes Clarke has abandoned in the doorway.  That girl is a menace.      

 

“This is a goddamn fire hazard!”  He hollers, but finds himself stacking her shoes in the small closet anyway, depositing the bag on the couch as he makes his way to the kitchen, jaw clenched and ready for a fight.     

  
  


But he drops the combative lurch of his shoulders when sees her, hair half pulled out of it’s bun and her slip showing, her dress all rucked up from scooting onto the counter.  She is a beautiful disaster and she is swinging her bare feet absentmindedly while she plunges her spoon into a pint of maple walnut.  He glares at her for a moment before sliding his arms across his chest.  

 

“Tough day?” he asks.  

 

“The worst.  The students waste more energy actively avoiding work than if they just went ahead and did the assignment.  It seems counterintuitive.”

 

Bellamy lets out a small snort of amused acknowledgement and Clarke is sliding down onto her toes and padding over to the freezer.  A moment later she tosses him a small container of sorbet and hands him a spoon.  

 

He’s watching her, eyebrows lifted and she just says, “What?  I didn’t want to wallow alone and you’re lactose intolerant.  I got you blood orange.”

 

Hopping back up on the counter, she grins when he comes to lean beside her.  Her pint is half empty but she’s savoring each bite.  And it’s the look on her face, the closed eyes and wild hair, brow slightly furrowed in the middle like she’s trying for something, really trying, and coming up empty.  Bellamy attempts to pay attention to the cold bite of ice on his tongue, but she hums in contentment and he’s gone.     

 

“You’re spoiling your dinner,” he remarks flatly and she nudges him with her knee.  

 

“You too.”

 

Somehow they end up retreating into the living room, sprawled out side by side on what Clarke tells him is the world’s most uncomfortable couch, watching reality TV on mute while she makes up alternate dialogue and he eggs her on.  

 

“There’s no way any two people are that happy,” she says, dropping the remote once she’s found an episode of Fixer Upper.  “I bet they secretly hate each other.  Who knows what happens off camera.”

 

Bellamy scoffs.  “She finds him charming - see how she playfully rolls her eyes like the mom in a paper towel commercial?”

 

He ignores that satisfied feeling in his chest when she laughs and he ducks his head each time she shoves him with her shoulder for being a smart ass.  Eventually Clarke sinks down against his side, a breath away from being tucked under his arm.  They’ve compromised on Ancient Aliens, perfect because he wanted the History Channel and she wanted something to mock, but they’ve lapsed into comfortable silence, only half focused on the screen.

 

“What if what you thought you wanted isn’t what you want anymore?”  she whispers.

 

He is silent for a moment, considering.  “Sounds like progress.”

 

Her eyes are half closed as she burrows into him, warm and inviting.  “I hope so.”

 

***

 

Clarke hears the agitated voices before she opens the door.  There is Bellamy, his deep rumble difficult to miss, and a new voice she’s never heard.  

 

Bellamy doesn’t often invite friends to the apartment, only Octavia and sometimes his friend Miller and Miller’s boyfriend, Monty.  So between the novelty of a new character and the pitch of their raised voices, Clarke opens the door on high alert. 

 

She finds Bellamy in the kitchen, fingers pinched at the bridge of his nose and shaking his head.  The stranger, a man in his mid-40s with wild hair and a kind face, leans against the counter with a coffee mug in his hand, and he releases his breath in a smug exhale.  

 

They both look up when she enters.  Bellamy’s face transitions from surprise to annoyance and he offers a weak introduction.  “Clarke, my roommate, meet Marcus Kane, the reminder that I’m not living up to my potential.”

 

Kane smirks.  “You’re the one with the power of choice, Bellamy, I’m just here to -”

 

“Can we maybe save this?” Bellamy interrupts, tossing an awkward glance at Clarke as she settles into a chair at the table.  Flustered Bellamy is something she doesn’t see often and it is to be enjoyed.           

 

Kane raises an eyebrow, extending his hand.  “Nice to meet you, Clarke.  Bellamy here was one of my brightest students, if you can believe it.”

 

She smiles and Bellamy is squirming.  “I can, actually.  I live with him, so I’m pretty much an expert on how many books he consumes.  It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Kane.”

 

“It’s Dr. Kane, actually,” Bellamy mutters and Clarke can see Kane smiling under his breath.  

 

“Yes, and I guess I was just leaving?”  It’s almost playful, the way Kane shoots Clarke an amused grin, but  Bellamy’s face has moved from annoyed to desperate and he nods.  

 

“Yeah, I’ll catch up with you later,” Bellamy says, the recipient of one last knowing look from his friend before busying himself with the dishes, and Kane makes his way to the door.  

 

“Are you going to tell me what that was all about?” Clarke asks.

 

“No.”

 

“I didn’t know you went to college.”

 

“I didn’t.  Not really.”  He hunches his shoulders as he closes himself off, but this is new information and Clarke has never been one to back down from a challenge.

 

“Not really?”  She leans back and digs in.  “What was your major?”

 

Bellamy is washing the dishes about as loudly as one can, banging bowls and scraping plates.  But his eyes are dark as he stares forward into the suds.  “Drop it, Clarke.”

 

“Oh, it’s some kind of big secret.  I get it.  Gotta keep your tortured image going.  Makes sense.”

 

He turns.  “Are you serious?”

 

“What?  Did you just give up and drop out?”  

 

There is a crash as Bellamy slams a bowl into the sink so hard it makes Clarke jump.   

 

“Like you don’t know all about giving up, eh Clarke?  When was the last time you talked to you mom?  That’s right.  When things are rough, Clarke Griffin just runs.”

 

His words bite and Clarke falls silent.  Because in that moment she hates him.  And he’s right.  After her father died, she’d run from them all.  From Wells and his dark, sympathetic eyes.  From her mother and the hurt that still hung on her voice.  Maybe she is still running.    

 

Bellamy’s eyes are closed, hands dripping and braced against the sink.  

 

“People who grow up like I did - we don’t go to college.”  His voice is a contradiction, cracking with intensity but so soft she can barely hear him.  

 

Clarke’s never seen him like this, fists clenched and knuckles white, jaw twitching.  Bellamy is always ready to argue, his exact thoughts broadcast in the tilt of his head and the height of his eyebrows - but it’s always over small things and it never sticks - she’s squeezed the toothpaste from the wrong end, or drank the last of the coffee without making more. But this is different.  It’s not even anger, it’s - disappointment.  

 

He doesn’t speak to her the rest of the afternoon, doesn’t acknowledge her, and frankly, Clarke’s okay with that.  Bellamy is a rain cloud that refuses to downpour, just looming there in the sky, throwing his shadow over the apartment.  He blusters and he blows until finally he throws himself down on the couch beside her, head in his hands.       

 

“History,” he says.

 

“What?”

 

“I was a history major.  I had a scholarship.”

 

Clarke nods, curiosity winning out over the remnants of her anger.  “So what happened?”

 

Bellamy is quiet for a moment.  He is staring at the distant wall, but his face is schooled neutral in the manner of someone who has trained themselves not to feel but feels too much anyway.

“ It was like I’d won the lottery.  My grades were good, I met Kane . . . and then my mom died.  Octavia was only 16.”

 

He doesn’t need to say more, Clarke can see the rest of the story drawn in his features.  A boy who comes home to support his sister, who drops out of school to work odd jobs, who scrapes by on no money and no sleep.   

 

“Bellamy,” she says, “I’m sorry.  It wasn’t my business. I shouldn’t have pushed.”

 

He clenches and unclenches the fists he has balled at his sides.  “Kane keeps bugging me to go back and finish my degree.”

 

“Will you?”

 

Bellamy laughs but it is hollow and rough on the edges, like glass in a wound.  “When would I work?  I can’t even afford this shithole without a roommate.”

 

“What about your scholarship?”  

 

He shakes his head.  “They don’t give scholarships to losers who work shoveling dirt and pouring drinks, Princess.”

 

Clarke throws her head back and sighs.  He forgets she’s seen him, scuttling from one job to the next - exhausted after a full day of landscaping only to rush into the shower and wash off the dirt and sweat before heading for the bar to work until close.  She’s seen the way he snatches moments between commitments, stealing a page or two from his book when he thinks no one is looking.     

 

He sneers.  “I’ve accepted the life I have, Clarke.  Have you?”

 

His question surprises her and Clarke just blinks.  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

 

“It means you hate your job and I hate mine.  We are the same, degree or no degree.”

 

“But my degree gives me options.  I can choose to do something different.”  There is a defiance to the tip of her chin, she can feel it - that old habit of victory, of winning battles before they’ve started.  Bellamy only scoffs.

 

“Then why don’t you?”

 

***

 

They step around each other until they grow tired of the game.  They circle until they overlap.  Bellamy puts on the kettle while Clarke reaches over his shoulder for the french press.  He brushes while she flosses.  His laundry sneaks into her hamper.  Her fork sneaks onto his plate.      

 

She appears in the doorway while he’s reading, flour dusted through her hair and streaked across the apron she’s stolen.  “I need your help.”

 

Bellamy stands slowly, tucking a bookmark between the pages of his paperback and raising his eyebrows.  She’s covered the counters in spots of batter, a mountain of used bowls stacked by the sink.  He can’t help it - he just laughs.  “What happened in here?”

 

Clarke scowls.  “Don’t be a smartass.”  She walks over to the stove.  “I am trying to make crepes but I can’t get it to the right temperature.  They keep burning.”

 

“Crepes?”

 

“Don’t judge,” she says, eyes suddenly searching the floor.  “My dad used to make them for me when I was a kid.” Clarke hesitates before she continues.  “He’d let me crack the eggs and stir the batter.”

 

“Sounds like a team player,” Bellamy says and when Clarke smiles, it feels like Christmas.  

 

He lights the flame under the pan, taking note of the bowl of batter and the plate of carefully sliced fruit.  “What are we aiming for here?”

 

“Medium-High.” 

 

She dodges in front of him with a stick of butter, liberally greasing the surface and he watches as she ladles the first dose of batter onto the pan.  Taking the handle, she tips and rotates, spreading the crepe thin and round.    

 

“Cool trick,” he says, and she is showing him how to do the next one, her hand guiding his.  Clarke smells like shampoo and citrus and sunlight and Bellamy can find her over the scent of the browning batter and melted butter.     

 

They sit at the table, crepes filled with bananas and doused in chocolate syrup and her eyes slide shut as she takes the first bite.  “Perfect.” 

 

“Your dad would be proud?”

 

Clarke is quiet for a moment, poking at a banana with her fork.  “Today would have been his birthday.”

 

Bellamy understands.  Her crepes taste like a memory.  

 

*** 

 

Clarke can feel her eyes sliding shut.  The principal at her school is talking, he is  _ always  _ talking, and every once in awhile Lincoln nudges her elbow, grinning, and she wipes the drool from her chin.   

 

The days spent in combat with her students feel like paradise in comparison to this - a middle-aged white man, in love with the sound of his own voice and spouting educational philosophy he lacks the backbone to implement.  And this meeting will be followed by another, led by the instructional coach, who lives within the confines of her discussion protocols and her carefully plotted rubrics.  Clarke already feels empty and it’s only 10 o’clock.  

 

Suddenly, there is a tap on her shoulder and Clarke is being beckoned to the hallway by the secretary.  The rickety woman looks like exhaustion and smells like caramel and she bends in close.  

 

“There is a man here for you, dear,” she says, “There’s been some sort of incident at your apartment.”

 

Clarke shakes her head.  “What?”

 

But the secretary doesn’t have a chance to answer before Clarke sees Bellamy, examining the school’s trophy case with an ironic smile.  

 

“What are you doing?”  Clarke hisses under her breath as she pulls him conspiratorially into her space, the brush of their shoulders a tease of proximity.

 

Bellamy’s eyes glint under the harsh fluorescent lighting and his smile sits puckish and lopsided on his face, all dimple.  “I’m busting you out of here.”

 

She scoffs, “To do what?” and he laughs.  It’s like thunder in his chest.

 

“Whatever the hell we want.”

 

“I can’t just  _ leave _ , Bellamy,” she says and she glances around, eyeing the secretary who has returned to her desk at the intersection of empty hallways.  

 

“Because you’ll miss all the important stuff?”   

 

Clarke sighs, hands on her hips and eyebrows raised.  “That’s not the point.  What did you tell them, Bellamy?”  

 

He smirks and it’s infuriating.  “I told them there was a small fire in our apartment and you were needed to go over the report with the police.”

 

“What?” Clarke can feel her jaw drop.  

 

“It was Miller’s idea.  I was just going to show up and roll the dice.”

 

She’s torn.  She wants to smack him, to shake him until that grin topples from his lips.  Because he can’t do this - spontaneously show up at her workplace and convince her to leave.  Even though her other option includes returning to that stuffy library and listening to the principal drone on about learning targets.  Bellamy is walking over to the secretary and she is following him. 

 

“Thank you, Phyllis,” he says, bending over her desk. “You’re a lifesaver.”

 

The secretary smiles and hands Clarke a pen.  “My pleasure, dear.  Clarke, if you’ll just sign out here, I’ll make sure everything gets logged correctly.  Good luck!”

 

Clarke’s smile feels flimsy but she signs the sheet anyway, thanking Phyllis on her way out.  She thinks she must be losing her mind.  

 

In the parking lot, Bellamy laughs up at the sky.  He’s borrowed Lincoln’s truck and Miller is waiting for them, leaning out the passenger’s side window with a cigarette hanging from his bottom lip.  

 

“She’s coming?” he says, surprised and Bellamy drums his fingers against the door before opening it and swinging inside.  

 

“I made a convincing argument.”

 

“I wouldn’t say it was convincing, I was just choosing between two bad options.”  Clarke counters and Bellamy is smiling again and turning the key in the ignition.  “So what are we really doing?”

 

It’s Miller's turn to grin as he reaches up to adjust the beanie over his ears and Bellamy grabs the cigarette from his mouth and flicks it out the window.  “Stop worrying so much, Griffin.  Just enjoy the ride.”

 

Somehow Clarke ends up sandwiched between them because Miller whines until she gives up the window seat.  It leaves her pressed against Bellamy for the hour long ride, the warmth of his body seeping through his flannel.  He sings to the radio in a deep and clumsy baritone and fights with Miller over the volume.  

 

The truck finally stops in a row of empty spaces alongside the longest beach Clarke has ever seen.   

 

“Where the hell are we?” she asks, eyes wide and jaw set with intrigue.  

 

Bellamy smirks.  “What’s the matter, Clarke?  Never seen the ocean before?”

 

Miller has kicked off his shoes and is heading down to the water, but Clarke stands frozen, the wind whipping the hair out of her face and she can already taste salt on her tongue.  “It’s just been a while.”

 

The sun might be shining but it’s early November and Clarke draws her jacket tight around her shoulders.  The boys are flicking water at one another, howling at the bite of the cold against their skin.  

 

“My toes are numb!” Miller is shouting and Clarke recognizes Raven's car as it slides to a stop.  She’s come with Monty in tow and Monty’s friend Jasper, a kid with arms long enough to pull the sun from the sky and a smile almost as wide.    

 

Clarke doesn’t remember when exactly Raven and Miller started having weekly MarioKart showdowns in their living room, sitting on the floor with backs pressed against that awful sagging couch.  She doesn’t remember when Monty started stopping by with excess from their garden, and he’d continued even after the frost, now with his homemade moonshine.  And with them all laughing, cursing at each other with toes in the ice cold water, the sun bouncing off their hair and ringing them in gold, Clarke wonders when her life had become this full.       

 

“Clarke!” Raven calls.  “What are you waiting for?”  

 

They drive home with the heat on full blast, the water evaporating from their clothing and leaving it stiff and salt-stained.  Clarke barely makes it up the stairs before she stumbles into the apartment and lays herself out on the floor.  

 

“See?  No fire.”  Bellamy says, holding out a hand to help her to her feet.  Clarke pulls him down instead.

 

“You’re an ass.”  It’s all she can think of to say with him stretched out next to her, their fingers still clasped.  

 

***

Abby Griffin is all sharp edges, angular and petite and clutching a dish of green bean casserole as Bellamy opens the door.  Severe is almost too kind a word to describe the expression on her face.

 

“Clarke’s in the kitchen,” he explains, mostly because it feels like something to do other than wither under her scrutiny.  Abby scans the apartment, eyes lingering over every deficit until they finally land on him.  

 

“You’re Bellamy.”  It’s not a question and she doesn’t sound impressed.  

 

“Mom!  You’re early!”  Clarke emerges from the kitchen, wearing flour like she wears paint, streaked across her cheeks and down her arms.  Raven had arrived before the sun and they’ve been making pies, ignoring his advice and wrecking his kitchen.  When he’d seen enough, he’d defected to the living room, pushing the sofa against the wall to make space for the large blanket (aka table) Clarke has spread out across the floor.    

 

“Yes, well.  Considering the neighborhood, I wanted to get here before dark.” Abby talks like the words taste bitter in her mouth and she’s rested the casserole on the coffee table and is now tracing a crack in the drywall with her finger.  

 

Bellamy can see Clarke tensing, her shoulders pulling together and her hands balling to fists, but Raven bounds from the kitchen, her ponytail swinging and her hand extended and it’s like she’s pushed the small hurricane out to sea.  

 

Raven’s asking Abby’s opinion on the pies, discussing logistics for the meal, and suddenly Abby Griffin is actually smiling and organizing a small buffet on the kitchen table.  Clarke leans over and whispers, “Is it normal to be freaked out when your friends get along with your parents?”

 

Bellamy shrugs and whispers back.  “Dunno.  Don’t have any parents.”

 

She swats him on the arm and there is knocking at the door - Monty and Miller bearing mashed potatoes and stuffing, and Jasper, hugging a plate of candied yams.  Octavia and Lincoln bring the turkey - it’s even sliced, and Kane is the last to arrive, looking windswept and scholarly in a tweed jacket, a bottle of wine tucked under his arm.    

It is pretty weak as far as Thanksgivings go, the group of them clustered on the floor passing dishes around and balancing plates on their knees.  Kane’s bottle of wine doesn’t go very far and Monty’s moonshine tastes like gasoline but they drink it anyway.  Raven hands Abby a mug, she wrinkles her nose and Clarke - she giggles until Abby is giggling too and Bellamy wonders when the last time  _ that _ happened.  

 

In the end, Octavia is dealing a hand of poker, Kane and Abby bickering over politics in the corner, and Bellamy is washing dishes in the kitchen, listening to the din of laughter and voices over the whirr of the faucet.  Clarke comes in to lean against the counter and wordlessly apply the dishtowel to a dripping stack of bowls.

 

“Your mother seems to be enjoying herself.”  Bellamy says and he hands Clarke a plate.

 

“Yeah, I just heard her call Kane ‘Marcus’ and I think they exchanged phone numbers.  So that’s a thing that’s happening.”

 

He shakes his head with a laugh.  “Not a bad Thanksgiving, then.”

 

Clarke’s grin is wide and perfect.  “Not bad at all.”

 

***

 

The streetlamp outside Bellamy’s window throws an angular and jagged pattern of light across Clarke’s yellow curtain.  It’s probably a metaphor for the way it half-heartedly divides the room, the glow still sneaking across to her side along with Bellamy’s snores and the fraudulent clang of the radiator (like it’s actually putting out heat?).  A cosmetic wall between them, still hanging while her own walls fall around her ears.  Because they’re friends now, are they not?  Clarke knows they’re not.  Not really.  

 

Clarke has friends, she knows how they work.  An argument with Raven doesn’t leave her shaking with anger.  Laughing with Miller doesn’t press her heart against her chest.  Sometimes Monty will lean into her, resting a head on her shoulder and she doesn’t feel the imprint hours later, seared into her skin.  

 

Somehow, Bellamy is  _ more _ .  He doesn’t suggest things for her to read, he’s reading poetry aloud, pacing the apartment with his hand gripping the page, his voice deep and thick with passion.  He isn’t just aware she hates flavored coffee, he actively hates it with her, stocking the cabinet with the darkest roast he can find.  Bellamy  _ is. _  Bellamy  _ does _ .  He is the verb in every sentence, and when Bellamy  _ feels _ , he is the surface against which her match ignites.  The anger when he calls her spoiled, the awe as he points to the stars and draws constellations in the sky, the joy when they’re laughing, together, at the world, - everything is in technicolor and Clarke wonders if this is how a bear feels, stumbling out of it’s cave after a long winter.  

 

Avoidance and boredom, two old friends, feel out of place here between the crumbling walls and the crooked floors.  They are cold, and she is tired of shivering.    

 

The floor is creaky.  The planks are wide with enough space in between to lose change, but Clarke finds them soundless tonight under her bare feet.  She sweeps the old yellow sheet to the side and Bellamy - he is sleeping on his stomach, arms stuffed under his thin pillow and he just looks  _ warm. _

 

Clarke slips under the covers and Bellamy sighs, soft and drowsy as he rolls on his back to make room.  “You’re a nuisance,” he grumbles, but she curls into his side anyway.  

 

***   __

 

Winter comes, throwing its blanket of snow over the city and casting everything in white, and a day later, muddy brown.  Bellamy replaces landscaping work with shoveling and raking roofs, escaping the house before the sun and traffic and returning home by noon, limp and listless.  

 

Clarke is preoccupied with the winter art show, finals, and hot chocolate, and suddenly he is finding empty mugs abandoned all over the apartment and cocoa powder dusting the counters.  He groans as she throws herself down on the couch next to him, paper and scissors in hand and before he can protest they are carving out snowflakes to hang in the windows.

 

When they laugh, it shakes the walls of the small apartment, and when they fight, it threatens to bring them down.  But when they kiss, it is a cold Wednesday in January.  Clarke is home from school on a snowday and Bellamy finds her buried under a fortress of blankets on his bed.  Their bed.  She’s been sharing it for over a month and he’s been waking up with her hair in his mouth, her body tucked tightly against his.  

He’s not sure what it means but he’s also certain he might never be able to give it up.

 

Clarke pulls him down beside her, tugging the blankets over their heads, and he just . . . freezes.  There is something intimate about this dark, humid cave - he can see the whites of her eyes as they rest on his face.  Then her hand finds its way to his jaw and her lips find their way to his mouth and time stands still.  

 

It begins soft like the snowfall, kisses peppered across noses and trailing down jawlines.  It’s exploratory.  It’s new.  But the drag of her fingers through his hair brings heat, and they are gasping for air underneath this mountain of blankets, the scrape of her nails against his side sending fire through his veins.    

 

It ends with her in his arms, blankets abandoned and his sweat-covered skin bristling against the cold.  She kisses his chest and twists their fingers together and he can’t help but smile.  He’ll be smiling for days.  

 

“You know what I could really go for?” Clarke asks, her voice still rough.  “Hot chocolate.”

 

Bellamy barks a laugh and flips over to see her smile as wide as his.  She is giggling and they are kissing and this moment - Bellamy wishes he could keep it. 

 

*** 

 

Oversized sweaters and socks with holes in the toes.  Dishes in the sink, clothes on the floor.   Clarke is grading art history papers until her eyes cross and she decides to poke Bellamy with her foot.  

 

He doesn’t look up, of course, but instead lifts an eyebrow.  She pokes him again and he smiles.  Once more and he abandons his book on the table, perched open with the spine bent in duress, to grab her ankle and pull her squealing into his lap.  Clarke counts the freckles on his nose and drops a kiss in the corner of his smile.  Sometimes, this is how they live. 

 

Sometimes he lets her read his poems.  Sometimes she lets him see her sketches. (But not the ones of him, those are a secret).  Sometimes Clarke just watches him, humming as he putters in the kitchen, or brow creased with his nose in a book.  She lies awake and watches him sleep, peaceful as his eyelashes flutter against his cheek.  But these moments, they are stolen,  antagonized by reality.  They are like sand running through her fingers.

 

“You know, eating string cheese with a bowl of tortilla chips does not count as nachos,” Bellamy tells her, fresh from the shower and leaning over the back of the couch for a kiss.  March is a slow month for him, so he’s picked up hours with a local road and tree service, cleaning up after winter’s mess.  

 

“Food Network tells me this is ‘deconstructed’. I’m thinking outside the box.”  

 

He makes sure to glare at her before stealing a chip from the bowl.  That’s when she sees his hand.  

 

“Holy shit, Bellamy - what happened?”  Clarke turns to get a better look.  His hand is purple and enveloped in gauze but he hides it back behind the couch.

 

“It’s nothing,” he shrugs.  “I just caught it between the harness and the tree.  It looks worse than it is.”

 

“Show me.”  

He sighs and there is a weak moment of protest and rolled eyes before Clarke pulls him down beside her, taking his injured hand and peeling away the gauze.  

 

“You’re lucky it’s not broken,” she says, inspecting the gash on his palm and the bruising along his knuckles.  

 

“It’s fine.  I’m just lucky I still have a job.”

 

“Wait.  What?  You’re not going back there.  Your hand needs at least a few weeks to heal.”

 

“What I  _ need _ is to be able to make rent, Clarke, and Pike pays more than any other contractor in town.”

 

Clarke shakes her head.  “This is ridiculous, Bellamy.  What are you going to do?  Climb trees with one hand and hope you don’t fall?  I’m not on board with that.”

 

“You don’t have to be on board with that.  I’m not asking your permission.”

 

“Then I’ll just pay more -”

 

“No,” he interrupts, flatly. 

 

Clarke is silent, staring at the floor and biting her lower lip.  “Bellamy,” her voice is soft.  “You can’t keep doing this.”

 

He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t have to.  The question she’s not asking are the ones she already has the answers for.  That her four semesters in pre-med will have to get him through because insurance isn’t something that comes along with odd jobs and paychecks collected under the table.  That this isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last.  

 

She cleans his hand, rewraps it, but it’s hard to have her heart walking outside her body like this.       

 

Bellamy steals her bowl and makes real nachos.  Clarke puts on My Cat from Hell and they argue with Jackson Galaxy.  Balance restored.  But somehow it still feels like an illusion.  A life they can’t quite reach.  

 

***

 

Octavia has that look in her eye.  The one with the crinkle in the corner - she is laughing at him in that silent way of hers, where fondness mixes with ridicule in the way only a sibling can recognize.  

 

Bellamy’s already walked into a pencil display and annoyed the bored looking art student behind the sales counter by asking how the weight of paper can possibly justify such a difference in pricing.  He feels awkward and out of place, hands shoved deep in his pockets and there is Octavia smirking at him from over by the oil paints and he just gives up.

 

“Why are we here, Bellamy, if you’re not going to buy anything?”  Octavia sighs and rubs her forehead like a mother exhausted by her small child.  

 

Bellamy just shrugs in defeat.  The aisles are filled with college students whose baskets are filled with $80 paintbrush sets and the heaviest paper they can find, their expressions sour and pockets lined with their parent’s money.  Octavia is better at blending in but this is not his world.  

 

At least words are free.  

 

He wouldn’t even be here except it’s Clarke’s  _ birthday,  _ and he knows the paints she likes are more expensive than the ones he’s handing to the cashier.  He knows he’ll get credit for trying, but that’s not enough, not really.  

 

“You’re stupid in love with her, aren’t you, big brother?” Octavia asks, still smiling as she settles in behind the wheel of her truck and turns the key in the ignition.  Bellamy says nothing and stares out the window, the small bag of gifts between his legs.  Because she’s not wrong, she’s missed the punctuation.  He’s stupid.  In love.  

 

And Clarke?  She is two people.  There is Clarke with Bellamy’s arm slung over her shoulders, making jokes and picking fights.  It’s the Clarke that paints flowers across the walls and spreads her soul across the canvas.  This Clarke revels at the fresh taste of strawberries in the crepes they make, the Clarke who sinks into Bellamy’s kisses like she wants never to find her way out.  It’s Clarke when she lives by accident.

 

But there is a chill to the tips of her fingers that echoes the empty smile she wears on her face when she comes home from work.  She is tired from fighting off the poisonous words of sixteen year old bullies under the insufferable weight of doing it alone.  She hides it under that smile as she turns to ice.  Sometimes Bellamy wonders if she can still feel at all.           

  
  


***

 

In April, the school decides not to renew Clarke’s contract.  There’s only room in the budget for one art teacher, they tell her, and she has less seniority.  But she knows it’s all bullshit.  Her opinions have been too loud, her intentions too naive.

 

“But you hate your job,” Bellamy tells her as he fetches a pint of ice cream from the freezer.  It doesn’t help.  Clarke has forgotten how to taste.  The defeat hangs on her shoulders, numbness creeping under her skin.  

 

“There’s a difference between choosing to get out and being forced to, Bellamy.”

 

She expects him to fire something back, but he doesn’t.  He just wraps his arms around her shoulders and it’s actually worse, how he can just  _ know _ her like that.  It’s too much, the way he tries to hold together all her broken pieces.

 

Because it’s not supposed to be this hard, is it?  The career she thought she wanted isn’t supposed to leave her gutted like this.  And love?  It’s not supposed to leave her feeling helpless.

 

Bellamy, this apartment, her friends that arrive with a bottle of tequila and a bag of classic N64 games - it’s wasted effort on a hollow soul.       

 

It’s May and she’s packing only what she can carry on her back.  Bellamy stares at her like he’s seen this coming but can’t actually believe it’s happening.  He looks like heartbreak but she tries to memorize him anyway, his dark eyes, the freckles, the softness that lurks behind it all.  

 

“Where are you gonna go?” he asks and it hurts because he knows better than to ask her to stay.  

 

Clarke shakes her head.  “I don’t know.”  

 

She kisses his cheek and she’d cry except that her tears are all frozen.  They just cling to the corners of her eyes like frost on the grass and refuse to fall, heavy and hot down her cheeks.  Clarke’s body moves on it’s own, she’s just along for the ride.  And when she closes the door, she just feels cold.  


	2. Falling Apart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been sooooo long since I posted the first chapter!!!! Why can't everything in my life slow down so I can just write fanfiction all day?? This beast of a chapter is totally unbeta'd, probably full of too many commas and sentences that Amanda and EzWriter would make so much better, BUT they have lives too, apparently, so I thought I'd save them some time and just go for it? I hope it's been worth the wait :)

 

It takes Clarke about a month before she finds the words.  Except she doesn’t know how to use them.  Her bag is full of empty postcards for she is the collector of unwritten letters.  But the words sit in her chest and never find their way to paper.   _ I’m tired of running, but I’m too afraid to come home _ .  

She’s staring at a bronze casting in Rome, two brothers, raised by a wolf - what are their names?  It’s not the first time she hears Bellamy’s voice answer in her ears, but it’s not fading with the distance, so she keeps walking, hands stuffed in her pockets, looking for another way to drown out the noise.      

 

Clarke meets Lexa just on the other side of Alexanderplatz, wrapped in a thick scarf and a scowl.  The accordion player on the corner whistles at her through the gap in his teeth, but Clarke leaves money in his cap anyway.  He is made of dust and holes and music and he nods as the coins leave her palm.  And Lexa - she is just watching.  

 

They fit together for a while, in a small Kreuzberg apartment, two half people trying to make a whole.  The ceilings are high, the windows dressed in fabric, forcing softness in a space otherwise defined by its sterile white walls and sharp angles.  But Lexa lights her candles and Clarke curls up in a blanket and that might be warmth if they try hard enough.  

 

Clarke likes Berlin, a city broken in half and put back together.  It has scars, and maybe that’s the appeal.  She thinks she might find her place here between the students and the squatters.  She might be able to replace the dark eyes and freckles haunting her sketchbook with the clean lines of modern architecture.       

 

Lexa herself is cast of sharp lines and stoic beauty.  She is a dancer, she is a warrior, with battered feet and bruised knuckles.  She has more ghosts than a cemetery, and she carries them in the shadows beneath her eyes, in the determined clench of her jaw.  She lives without living and that’s something Clarke can understand.

 

The leaves fall from the trees and Clarke cuts her hair.  She drinks tea and paints on canvas instead of walls.  

 

The snow falls and Clarke pretends that the things she misses don’t outnumber the things she doesn’t.   But her pile of empty postcards is growing.    

 

Mornings are quiet.  Clarke sits in the window watching the snow, the large flakes clumsy in their descent as they dust the streets and trim the trees.  She still finds it strange, always being the first to wake, to walk into the kitchen and find it empty.  There is no clang of the radiator, no hum of the shower.  The wood floor is cold beneath her bare feet and heat of her tea does nothing to thaw the ice in her bones.  There’s ice in her fingers, ice in her toes - just a frozen block of fear where her heart used to be.  And this quiet, it feels like waiting.

 

Frost creeps up the windows, and Clarke wonders if it’s water that’s killing time or biding it until spring. 

 

Backstage at Lexa’s events, Clarke tries to engage, moving through the bustle of bodies, never quite able to settle.  Never quite belonging.  She makes small talk with Lexa’s friends, tries to laugh at the jokes she doesn’t understand, smiling until her cheeks ache and her face cracks under the weight of her facade.  Can they tell?  She is an echo.

When she tells Lexa she’s leaving, the news is met with a nod.  

 

“Sometimes our journey is a circle.”  

 

It’s condescending, the way Lexa frames everything as a lesson.  It’s how she pushes away the pain, how she disconnects herself from the moment, but Clarke deserves it.  Lexa is just another person she’s determined to disappoint.

But it’s time to go home.  

 

***

 

Raven’s smile is all teeth, visible above the chaos of the baggage carousel.  She feels familiar as she tucks Clarke into a hug, like a cloud of smoke and vanilla, and it brings Clarke back.  

 

“It’s been too long,” Raven breathes.  Clarke is jet lagged and giddy with her friends fingers tangled in her own.  They bring home burritos and bagels, Clarke’s pockets filled with peanut butter cups, because these are the flavors of home.  The smells and sounds of the city are calling her, the heat, the exhaust, the stains on the sidewalk.  They find her like they didn’t know she’d left.    

 

She’s set up in Raven’s spare room with a shiney new job and a shiney new paycheck.  But she looks for him without meaning to.  She’s searching for his face on the street, listening for the familiar rumble of his voice.  Raven drops hints like breadcrumbs and Clarke collects them all.  

 

“I’m going to call him,” Clarke tells her and Raven raises an eyebrow.  “I’m just settling in first.”  

 

She doesn’t mention that she’s scared. 

 

But it’s Octavia she runs into first, looking bored and contemplating canned tomatoes in the checkout aisle of Whole Foods.  Clarke ducks behind a corner display of veggie straws,  rolling her eyes at herself, when she hears Lincoln’s voice from across the way.  

 

“Clarke?”

 

Shooting to her feet, she’s clutching a bag of rainbow colored puffed vegetables like she could still hide behind it, but Lincoln’s voice is warm and he is smiling.  

 

“I didn’t know you were back.  How long are you in town?”  

 

“I moved back,” she answers and it comes out a little shy.  “I’m staying with Raven until I figure everything out.”

 

He nods, the way he did that night when Clarke showed up at his doorstep, broken hearted and homeless, all kindness and hospitality.  It’s disarming.   

 

“Clarke?  Does Bell know you’re back?”  Octavia spits out the words like spears, and Clarke freezes. 

 

“I was going to call him.”  It’s her mantra.  It’s an almost truth.  She was  _ going to _ call him.  She was going to call him the moment she left his apartment, the moment she stepped off the plane in Amsterdam, the moment she first woke without his familiar heat by her side and every moment in between.  She  _ was _ , she just hadn’t.  

 

Octavia’s expression doesn’t soften.  

 

“Don’t,” she says, and it takes Clarke by surprise.  “Not unless you’re going to stay.”

 

***

 

It was the rain’s fault, really.  The dark clouds had descended out of nowhere, dumping buckets of water on the city and Clarke, she was in the neighborhood, soaked and looking for refuge and . . .

 

The key still sticks in the lock, requiring a small jiggle before finally giving way.  Clarke smiles.  She’d almost forgotten.    

 

Bellamy’s painted the walls, buried her murals like bones under some new eggshell white exterior, but she can still find the cracks in the plaster.  The kitchen is haunted with traces of him, coffee rings on the counter, an abandoned crossword on the table, pens everywhere.  

 

He smiles from a photo on the refridgerator, his arm slung around Octavia’s shoulders.  It looks like they have been laughing and it makes Clarke ache, how long it’s been since she heard the sound, the way it escapes him like an afterthought, the way he ducks his head like it’s a secret.        

 

The space is filled with her ghosts too, the coffee grinder she’d bought him for Christmas, the fruit bowl on the table.  He’s filled it with odds and ends now, scissors and paperclips and change.     

 

Somehow the couch in the living room sags even more in the center.  Bellamy’s added a few piles of books in the corners, but the windows are still cloudy with age and the floors still slope, uneven, under her feet and Clarke closes her eyes and breathes deep.  Coffee and old books, memories and sunlight.  It still smells the same and she wonders, these walls, can they recognize her beneath all she’s changed?    

 

Clarke doesn’t expect to turn around and see Bellamy in the doorway.  He’s staring at her like  _ she’s _ the ghost, this expression on his face like she might possibly be the worst and best thing he’s ever seen.  Until he rallies.  Clarke sees all his walls throw up at once, that firm clench of his jaw as he straightens and slides his arms across his chest.  

 

“The world traveler returns.”

 

His tone is mocking and Clarke knows this fight.  She knows the way he shifts his weight, the way his expression is neutral while his eyes are on fire.  

“I was in the neighborhood?”  She shrugs, attempting a weak smile.  Nothing.

“What are you doing here, Clarke?”

His words are deliberate, made of gravel, and she pauses, takes a breath.  This is Bellamy.  His hair is longer and his clothes are new, but those freckles, they’re still hers.  Clarke’s memorized them, traced them, kissed them.  She’s mapped every inch of him.  But he’s staring at her like a stranger with Bellamy’s face, his eyes dark and cold and unrecognizable.  Why hadn’t she expected he might change too?  

 

This place, this moment, it isn’t haunted, it’s broken. 

 

“I don’t know.”  She shakes her head.  “I missed you.”

 

Bellamy drags a hand down his face, swallowing hard.

 

“How long are you staying?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

There’s a nod, like he’s just won an argument with himself, some kind of knowing smirk that settles into the corner of his mouth.  He doesn’t trust her.   

 

“Bellamy -”

 

He cuts her off with his hand.

 

“You disappeared for a fucking _year_ , Clarke.  Hell, I have a bag of your mail I’ve just been collecting because I didn’t have anything else to do with it.  Do you know what it’s like to tell everyone I didn’t know if you were coming back?”

Clarke blinks, stunned into silence.  It’s the wrecked expression on his face that pulls her to the couch and forces her head into her hands.  His eyes hold more soul than she knows what to do with.  Bellamy’s bracing himself against the wall, raking a hand through his hair and she can’t even argue with him.  It’s all true.  

 

“I’m sorry.”  Her voice comes out weak.  It’s broken too. 

 

The tears on her cheeks are the first warmth she’s felt in months, that and Bellamy as he squats at her side.  He doesn’t put his arm around her but she knows he wants to - that impulse to protect always winning out in the end.  He takes her hand instead.  

 

“I’m sorry too.”

 

***

 

Clarke is still as she rides the train back to Raven’s apartment, save for the tremble in her hands.  The streets, the crowd, it’s all a blur, background noise to the throbbing behind her eyes.  

 

Bellamy shut the door and it felt like the end.  But Clarke’s already homesick.  

 

If home can be a place, it can be a person.  It can be a time.  It can be the grass under her bare feet or the way the city smells after it rains.  It can be the sound of Bellamy singing in the shower, the way a smile exaggerates the dimple in his chin.  It can be the scrape of his chapped lips against hers, the taste of cheap beer against her tongue.  Even after all this time, Clarke thought she could still go back. 

 

She almost collapses against Raven as she opens the door, worry’s imprint already traced across her friend’s brow.  She wraps Clarke in her arms and the storm hits.    

 

Sobs that wrack her body, the fire of regret that courses through her veins - they are tangled together on the floor, Raven’s fingers in her hair, wiping her tears, lips warm against her forehead.  

 

They whisper lies to one another in the darkness.   _ Well, you came back, didn’t you? _  The truth is, her heart never really left.     

***

 

The days develop a rhythm and then they fade into one another.  Clarke likes this job better than her last.  It’s art therapy and gets her out in the community, but she still comes home tired and Raven greets her on the couch with wave and a pint of mint chocolate chip.  

 

Raven never asks how long she’s staying but it doesn’t matter.  The apartment is theirs now, the carcasses of old electronics left to litter every surface, scraps of paper and paint and life everywhere.  Clarke’s growing into it.  

 

She doesn’t hear her phone when it rings, it’s hiding under a pile of paperwork on her desk.  “There’s been an accident,” says the nurse in her voicemail, and Clarke’s jacket is already on and she’s down the stairs before the message is up.  

 

She’s not sure why it surprises her to see Bellamy in the waiting room, elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped behind his head.  He looks up and it’s like a mirror to see her shock reflected on his face.  

 

“How is she?  Have they told you anything?”  

 

Bellamy shakes his head.  “Raven’s in surgery.  They said her leg is pretty bad.  It’s too soon to know.”

 

If fear is cold, rage is white hot and Clarke is shaking.  She wants to either scream or combust, her heart breaks with it.  But Bellamy’s hand is on her shoulder and all she can say is, “Has anyone called my mother?”

 

Abby Griffin is there in twenty minutes and it’s just a kiss on Clarke’s cheek and a knowing nod before she heads off down the hall.  But somehow it makes Clarke feel better to know she’s there, that someone can maybe  _ do _ something besides sit in these stiff hospital chairs, staring at their hands.

 

As a child, she used to watch her mother sometimes, those clever fingers attaching the girl scout patches to her sash with surgical precision.  It was never something Clarke could quite imitate, her fingers had taken her in a different direction, but it was something she could respect.

 

Bellamy returns from the cafeteria with two cups of coffee, his expression almost guilty as he hands one to her.  

 

“It’s as good as you would expect,” he says, low.  He must have come in a hurry, he’s wearing his glasses and he’s all rumpled in a red plaid flannel and jeans, circles under his eyes.  It’s so good to see him.       

 

“Actually, I secretly love hospital coffee,” she teases and he snorts.  “Thanks.”       

 

It makes sense he’s one of Raven’s emergency contacts.  Bellamy is the first one she would want in a crisis too, it’s just - she forgets the two of them are friends sometimes, like a willful amnesia.  Raven leaves for trivia night and Clarke knows he’s there, but she doesn’t ask and even if she did, Raven would roll her eyes and tell her just to come along.  

 

But she can’t.  

 

He sits down beside her and they drink their coffee in silence. It’s so hard not to reach over and bury herself in his arms, to breathe him in, deep and grounding.  It’s tempting, and it’s terrifying, so she grabs a Reader’s Digest instead and stares at an open page.  

 

Finally Abby appears in the doorway and there are pins and needles under Clarke’s skin.  

 

“Raven is going to be fine,” Abby says, her voice steady.  “But she’s got a long and difficult road ahead of her.  Her knee was shattered - it may never be the same again.”

 

Clarke can hear Bellamy’s sharp intake of breath, but her hand finds her way to his and she squeezes.  

 

“Can we see her?”  His voice comes out hoarse.  

 

“Not yet,” Abby replies.  “But soon, I promise.  She’s still under the anesthesia, but we’ll let you know when she wakes up.”  

 

It happens before Clarke can explain it, her arms wrapping around her mother’s shoulders, and she is clutching her like a life raft.  Abby rubs circles into her back and suddenly Clarke is five again, steadied by her mother’s embrace and calmed by her kisses.  Clarke pulls away, her mother’s hand coming up to wipe the tears from her cheeks and words feel useless at a time like this.

 

“Mom,” Clarke’s voice cracks.  “Thank you.”

 

***

 

It’s another hour before they’re allowed in Raven’s room.  She’s trying to sit up in the bed, ignoring Bellamy’s stern look.

 

“How are you feeling?” Clarke asks.  Raven shrugs, but she has fault lines running down her face and bruises in the spaces between.  They’ve got her bad leg elevated and wrapped, and Clarke finds herself just crawling into the bed beside her, pulling Raven’s head to her shoulder while she cries.  Bellamy sits in the chair opposite, his elbows returning to his thighs.  And behind the hum of the equipment, the world is quiet.   

 

They keep Raven for a few days before she’s allowed to come home.  Abby checks in frequently, Bellamy stops by after work with food and the book he’s been reading aloud, but Clarke can’t bring herself to leave.  It feels wrong to leave anyone else behind.

 

Octavia brings her a change of clothes when she visits, just handing her a bag and a toothbrush without fanfare.  Clarke can’t even thank her before she’s gone and taken her place next to Raven on the bed.  

 

Raven herself doesn’t talk much.  She’s trying so hard to be normal, to pretend like everything doesn’t hurt all the time, but Clarke can see it wears on her.  The circles under her eyes aren’t going away and the cracks and bruises learn to live under the surface.  

 

They use the elevator now, Raven’s been confined to crutches although she’s not ready to move much.  Clarke’s converted the sofa into a bed because it’s closer to the bathroom, although Octavia has dressed it in pillows and Bellamy has brought over a lap desk and it looks nice.  Cozy.  Monty and Jasper have hooked up an emulator to the television with more vintage games than it would take a lifetime to play.  

 

It’s love through the small things, a sink of clean dishes, folded laundry, a fresh cup of coffee and a freezer full of food, the small kindnesses.  Nobody asks and the thank-you is implied.  It’s family.      

 

Sometimes Clarke drives her out of the city, to the beach, somewhere wide and open where they can just scream and the waves scream back.  Raven’s crutches sink into the sand, but like that is going to stop her.  Not even a broken wing can keep Raven Reyes out of the sky.  

 

***

 

Clarke comes home from work early and Bellamy has the pieces of an Ikea desk scattered across the floor while Raven mocks him.  It’s nice to see them both smile.    

 

“Instructions are for the weak, Bellamy.  There’s only one logical place for that big piece,” Raven tells him, taking the booklet from his hands and resting it on its back.  They both look up as Clarke enters and and all she can see are dark eyes and freckles.  Always.    

 

“How’s the big project going?”  Clarke asks, careful, resting her bag at her feet.  She hesitates before joining them, Bellamy having turned back toward the pile of compressed lumber,  but Raven snorts.

 

“Blake here, might not have a future in carpentry, that’s all I’m saying,” she jabs, but Bellamy’s shoulders have relaxed and he’s shaking his head.

 

“Maybe if someone would let me read the directions,” he responds, raising an eyebrow.  He’s pulled his lips into that sideways smile, hair half in his face.  Her fingers itch to reach out and touch it.    

 

He and Clarke, they’re not friends.  Not exactly.  But she forgets sometimes, when it almost feels easy - his smile, the laugh that comes out as a cough when he’s surprised, the light that plays in those dark eyes.  They talk in passing, when she needs him to loosen Jasper’s grip on the moonshine, or when Monty has passed out on the floor and she needs to show him where the extra blankets are.  It’s cordial.  It’s enough.  And it’s not.        

 

“Sorry, Joe College, but you can’t learn everything from a book,” Raven responds with a flick of her ponytail, but Bellamy is no longer playing along.  He stalls, his head dipped and his hand rubbing the back of his neck.  He’s  _ blushing _ . 

 

“Wait, what?” The question escapes Clarke’s mouth without permission along with all the air in her lungs.  

 

Raven just glares at him, her eyebrows through the roof.  “You didn’t tell her?”  

 

Bellamy barely tilts his head to look up.  He’s squinting, guilty.  “I’m taking classes again.”

 

The words take a moment to find their meaning, and Clarke finds she’s staring at him, mouth half open.  Bellamy is taking classes.  He’s blushing and staring at the ground, and it’s so  _ him _ , to be so timid about something that is so incredibly good.  Nobody underestimates their own value like Bellamy Blake.  She can see now, his fingers stained with ink and remembers his apartment littered with new piles of books.  Textbooks.  Her breath catches on it.      

 

“Bellamy, that’s incredible.”

 

“Tell her about Kane,” Raven prods and he sighs.

 

“It’s just a loan - It’s no big deal.”  

 

And as much as he’s avoiding her, eyes cast in every direction except hers, Clarke can’t help herself.  “Yes it is.”  

 

He looks up at her then with an expression she can’t read, somewhere between disbelief and a smile.  But he shakes his head and it’s gone, he’s picking up the boards and slotting them against one another.  

 

The desk gets assembled, and pressed into the corner so it’s a short walk for Raven from the couch.  When Bellamy leaves shortly after, it feels like there’s too much space.  

 

Raven tosses her a blanket from the couch and Clarke looks up.  “Hey,” she says.  “You were shivering.”  

 

***

 

It’s a small envelope, square and beige with no return address.   _ Lincoln & Octavia _ , it reads in flowing gold script.  But Clarke is most surprised by the note written beneath:   _ Please come - O. _

 

The venue is small, a few dozen chairs set out on a family member’s lawn.  Someone has constructed an archway and dotted it with flowers and the whole thing is simple and elegant and so many shades of beautiful, not even Miller has anything snide to say.  

 

No one is surprised that Jasper is late.  “I  _ told _ you we should have given him a ride,” Monty tells Miller as Clarke slides into the chair beside them.  Raven is walking the perimeter, she has a brace now, but sitting for too long makes her stiff and antsy.  She says she hates being idle, anyway. 

 

And then there’s Bellamy, in jeans with cuffs rolled at the heels.  At least he’s wearing a tie for the occasion, but the collar of his shirt is undone and his sports coat is faded, and Clarke’s mouth goes dry.  Happiness looks good on him.  Until a redhead comes up and winds an arm around his waist.  

 

“That’s Gina,” Monty whispers in her ear, because somehow he must have seen the cloud pass over her face, or he just belongs to the list of people who know what she’s going to feel before she feels it.  Either way, it’s unfair.  

 

“Thanks,” she returns with a nod.  Bellamy is laughing, bright and unexpected and, Clarke expects, not entirely sober.  He is running a hand through his hair like he’s nervous until Gina catches it and smiles up at him, all calm and reassuring.  Clarke has to look away.   

 

Raven has found Jasper and people are working their way to their seats.  There are some students Clarke recognizes in the string ensemble up front, and they wave at her before picking up their bows and waiting for Lincoln’s signal.  Seeing them isn’t as hard as Clarke would have expected, the memory of that school, the principal's office and it’s bouquet of mothballs, the look on the assistant principal’s face when she said they were “going a different direction” with Clarke’s job next year.  It’s sting has faded, and watching as Gina kisses Bellamy on the cheek before fleeing to her seat, it somehow doesn’t feel like the biggest regret in the room.

 

But it all melts when the ensemble starts to play.

 

Some moments are tangible, they live and breathe and feel.  Bellamy walking his sister down the aisle, Octavia’s dark hair long and loose at her shoulders, Lincoln’s face painted with pure certainty - this feels like one of them.

 

Honestly, Clarke can’t even hear the vows, so intense is the visual of this family of two becoming a family of three.  Bellamy’s face is shining with tears and, after the kiss, Octavia turns to him and buries herself in his arms.  Lincoln clasps Bellamy by the hand and they’re all crying and hugging and laughing.  It isn’t until then Clarke notices her own cheeks are wet.

Raven takes her hand with a gentle squeeze.  She always knows.  

 

The spell breaks and the crowd disperses to clear the chairs and set up tables for the reception.  It’s a potluck and casual, although Clarke swears she can taste Bellamy’s hand in at least half the dishes.  In an hour the music has gotten louder, half the guests have abandoned their shoes in the grass, and they’re all half-drunk and dancing in the fading light of an early summer sunset.  

 

Clarke’s nursing her beer on the sidelines, tapping her toes to the beat, and hardly notices Bellamy’s come up beside her until the sound of his voice causes her to jump. 

 

“Not dancing?”

 

Clarke braves a look at him and he’s smiling, cheeks pink.  “Maybe in a bit.  What about you?”

 

Bellamy shakes his head.  “Nah, too old,” he says and she snorts.  

 

“Can’t argue there.” 

 

His grin is white and wide as he tips his own bottle back, looking out over their friends, shaking and grooving and mostly looking like a bunch of idiots.  It makes her grin too.  

 

Octavia and Lincoln are swaying off to the side, foreheads pressed together - somehow they’ve carved a small slice of this moment for themselves.  

 

Clarke nods in their direction.  “How are you doing, you know, with everything?”  

 

Bellamy huffs a laugh, head dipping back as his free hand slides into his pocket.  He’s sliding his tongue across his lower lip and it takes him a second to respond.  “It was just the two of us, Octavia and me, for so long.”  He takes a sip of his beer and looks straight ahead.  “But I guess we’re not alone anymore.”

 

“Yeah, you’re stuck with us.” It feels like a risk, but if Bellamy has any objection, he doesn’t react.  The Ramones start playing, he’s tapping his foot, and there’s the memory.  Her music loud, Bellamy in the doorway with a book in his hand and a complaint on his lips.  She would throw a pillow at him and then another, he would laugh and his hands would end up on her skin and his lips would press against her hair.  He told her once that all Smiths songs sounded the same, breathed it into her neck, and she’d responded by grabbing his side until he laughed out loud and told him he lacked imagination.  

 

But Bellamy finishes his beer and Raven is pulling him into the fray, her ponytail swinging.  She’ll be tired and sore before the rest of them, but Raven runs on defiance.  She’ll be damned if her body holds her back.  

 

Clarke watches them, Monty in Millers arms, Jasper spilling his drink as he tries the charleston, Raven’s laughter - bright and crisp and happy.  Her life is so full, and Clarke thinks she’ll keep it this time.  

 

It shouldn’t hurt so much when Gina pulls Bellamy away for a slow dance, like a hole poked in a perfect moment, but Clarke bites her tongue and watches him go.  His words vibrate in her chest, no _ t alone anymore. _

 

***

 

Camping shouldn’t sound like a terrible idea, but it does.  Raven’s already stacked a mountain of gear by the door, sleeping bags and flashlights and a tent that’s never made its way out of the packaging.  Clarke’s packed every warm item of clothing she owns and Raven is laughing at her, swollen as she is with her layers of thermals and fleece. 

 

“Clarke, it’s  _ August _ ,” Raven groans, bent under the weight of her own duffel.

 

“Yeah, and it still gets cold at night.  This is New England.”  Clarke reminds her.  Jasper’s come to carpool and help with loading the old black Suzuki Samurai Raven’s been keeping alive for as long as Clarke has known her.  The transmission thumps and the driver’s seat is almost too tall to swing herself into, but Raven won’t give her up.  

 

It’s a tight fit in the back seat next to all their gear, but Jasper’s long arm reaches forward to mess with the radio, and with Raven swatting at him, it feels just right.

 

They’ve rented three adjacent campsites in the Berkshires, much farther west than Clarke’s ever been in Massachusetts.  Winding roads and foothills carpeted in green, driving up and up until their ears pop, she can’t help but think  _ this  _ is beauty as they all gape out the windows.  

 

The Blake’s are already there when Clarke finds the campground, Lincoln and Octavia having constructed a veritable compound out of tarps and rope.  Bellamy’s small tent  is anorexic in comparison, slouched low in the corner of the lot, but he sits stretched out in front of it, a book open in his lap and his glasses low on his nose.  Clarke can’t help but enjoy the sight of him, alone.

 

It only takes a few minutes to unload the Samurai, even with Clarke casing the site for the flattest place to pitch a tent.  Jasper hangs his hammock between two trees, rolling himself into it and closing his eyes, and Raven has disappeared to assemble the portable gas stove, leaving Clarke, angry and cursing at the tent poles for not bending into an arch like they should.  Camping sucks.  

 

Bellamy finally takes pity on her, holding the frame steady while Clarke attempts to coax the vinyl over the separate joints.  He’s not even hiding his smirk.  

 

“So I’m not an Eagle Scout, ok?” she mutters, but his grin only widens as she looks sheepishly back to her task.  It’s unfair, really, how that smile still leaves her breathless.  Bellamy is unaware.  He’s draping the rainfly over the top of the lopsided tent, securing the hooks, his hair falling into his eyes like always.  

 

“It’s good to see you broadening your horizons, Princess,” he says, nonchalant, as he kicks a stake into the ground.  

 

She takes a deep breath.  “I do what I can.” 

 

The tent looks pretty unexciting, tilted and small, but Clarke steps back to admire their work.  “How the hell is this a four man tent?”

 

Bellamy barks out a laugh and delivers a condescending pat on the shoulder.  “Let’s hope Miller and Monty were going to bring their own.”

 

Of course they don’t.  But there is dinner to be cooked, and the campfire is warm and Clarke pulls up a folding chair as close as she can without melting her sneakers.  Miller tells ghost stories and Raven sharpens sticks for marshmallows and by the time they retreat back to the tent, Clarke almost doesn’t care that Monty’s feet are in her face and Raven’s elbow is firmly burrowed into her side.  

 

She wakes to some cacophony of obnoxious birds spun together with a chorus of snores from inside her tent.  There’s a root digging into her back, and everything feels damp.  If it weren’t for the crackling of the fire outside and the complaint of her bladder, Clarke might sink back into her sleeping bag until a reasonable hour, but -

 

Bellamy’s standing over the portable gas stove, heating water for coffee in a saucepan and he looks up at the sound of Clarke stumbling into the day and cursing at the tent zipper when it gets stuck.  

 

“I fucking hate camping,” she says, low and groggy.  He’s smiling again.  This time, he’s amused.  

 

The trek to the outhouse is cold, the gravel crunching under Clarke’s feet with a musical quality, and the sun peeks from behind the trees as if it were just starting to stretch itself awake.  

 

She doesn’t have a lot of experience with campsite bathrooms, but this one is already not her favorite - the mysteriously sticky quality of the floor and the  eerie light cast by a few fluorescent bulbs.  A few soggy moths clog the sink drains.  

 

When she gets back to the tent, the coffee is ready, a familiar carafe waiting next to an empty mug.  Clarke smiles.  Bellamy’s hunched over the fire, a stick in one hand, poking at the logs as he sips his coffee.  

 

“So I learned that Miller snores,” Clarke says as she settles in across from him and bats away the smoke.  He huffs a laugh, but his eyes are on the fire.  

 

“Yeah, Monty’s either deaf or a saint.”  His voice is low, gruff like it also feels the strain of this early hour.  It makes her remember things like lazy mornings and lazy kisses, so she shakes her head and tries instead to focus on the dance of the flames and the blanket she’s wrapped around her shoulders.  

 

Lincoln left a dutch oven on the coals overnight to yield breakfast potatoes, which, when Octavia stumbles from their fortress, she points at with chopping motions and a groan.  

 

“Eggs-” she croaks with more pantomiming and heads off in the direction of the bathroom.  Bellamy’s already pulled off the lid, liberating the potatoes and Clarke grabs one despite herself.  It’s almost creamy on the inside, almost browned on the outside.  Maybe there is something good about camping.  

 

Sweeping his bangs from his forehead with a wrist, Bellamy might be chuckling but it’s hard to tell.  The fire has calmed enough to be good for cooking and there’s an unspoken teamwork in the way Lincoln appears with a grate and Bellamy’s sliced a wedge of butter to melt in the cast iron skillet.  They’ve encountered hungry Octavia before.  They have a system.  

 

The aroma of breakfast scramble rouses the rest of the crew, Monty emerging with his hair all pressed down on one side and Miller with his eyes half-closed and his beanie pulled down over his ears.  Raven looks stiff but fierce, the fire in her eyes outshining the one in their camp and deterring any questions.  She drags herself to the picnic table and scowls into a cup of coffee.  

 

Jasper doesn’t bother to get up, just rolls over in his hammock to shout at them, his smiling face popping up over the canvas.  He’s far too chipper for this hour of the morning.  

 

“When are we hiking?” he calls from his cocoon and Clarke sighs at the thought of dragging her tired limbs anywhere.  

 

Octavia, now nourished and ready to present the schedule, opens her mouth but Bellamy cuts in.  “I was thinking about renting some kayaks.”

 

Clarke sees Raven look up from her mug, intrigued.  

 

“It’s not that expensive and there’s a boat launch right by the camp store.”  

 

Octavia rolls her eyes.  No one doubts that she’ll go hiking, but the rest of them end up on the lake, paddling in circles and dragging their fingers in the water.  Raven, apparently born for this, is already on the other side of the lake, leaving the boys to chase loons and flick lily pads at one another.  

 

Clarke’s own kayak slices through the water, all quiet stealth, sending small ripples into the lake behind her.  Bellamy, however, seems to be stuck between two rocks.  

 

He’s pushing against the larger rock with his paddle when Clarke glides up next to him.  She’s trying really hard not to be smug.  Okay, not that hard.

 

“Having trouble there, Eagle Scout?” she mocks.  He frowns, his forehead damp enough with sweat to have captured his hair.  Somehow he’s both grounded and pinned himself at the same time, the nose of his kayak, hung up on a rock lurking just below the water.  

 

“I just can’t get good leverage,” he groans, and Clarke has already swung around the front, where she can push him free.  

 

“Can’t be good at everything, Blake.” 

 

He’s half smiling, loose on the water again and paddling in circles.  When he straightens out, they’re side by side in silence, tracing the waterline.  It’s the silence between them that is never really silent, betrayed by the crease in Bellamy’s forehead, by the way she thinks he might soften when he catches her looking at him.  It’s full of memories, unspoken heartbeats.  

 

“Is Gina working this weekend?”  The question escapes and Clarke can tell it feels out of place here, in this moment, with the sun at their backs, between the trees and mountains and sky.  

 

She can’t help it.  She just wants to know.  

 

But he still looks a bit startled, his gaze trained on the treeline.  

 

“We decided we work better as friends,” he says, soft.  There’s a pause and he adds, “She deserved better anyway.”

 

There’s the silence again, silence that is not silence, silence that buzzes and crackles and roars in her ears.  Finally, he looks at her, searching, and she says, “I dare her to find it.”

 

Clarke’s lungs have gone on strike, refusing to take in air.  He’s got her trapped, suspended in this look she can’t decipher, until there’s a scream, then a splash and Jasper’s in the water, howling and hauling on Monty’s kayak as he struggles to climb aboard.  

 

When Clarke looks back, Bellamy is already gone, halfway to Jasper’s rogue kayak as it drifts to the center of the lake.  “What the hell are you two even doing?” he shouts and Miller’s just got his arms crossed, tsking with mock disappointment.  

 

They drag Jasper from the water, but the excitement seems to have exhausted him.  He’s barely paddling to shore, relying on Raven for a tow, and by the time they return to camp, they are all starving, shoulders sore and arms spent.  

 

This time Lincoln’s dutch oven yields chili cooked on the coals of the morning’s fire and there’s no time for conversation, they just shovel heaping spoonfuls into their faces, mouths too busy for conversation.

 

By the time they finish, the fire is high, a lantern in the wake of the setting sun, shifting the angles on their faces and casting shadows amongst the trees.  Miller’s pulled a guitar from somewhere, and he picks at a few chords, the music filling up the night.  It isn’t until he starts singing that Clarke realizes it’s “Harvest Moon.”  He’s got a nice voice, soft and slightly coarse, and he’s undeterred by Bellamy’s teasing, pausing for a moment to defend himself.  “What?  You’ve never heard a millennial play Neil Young?”  

 

Her chair is cozy and the fire is warm - Clarke’s not sure at which point she’s fallen asleep until it’s Bellamy’s strong hands on her shoulders, pulling her back.  “C’mon Princess,” he says, it’s almost a whisper, “it’s time for bed.”

 

“I hate camping,” she moans, rolling her head to the side and her eyes clench shut in protest.  He laughs, as soft as his fingers as they smooth the hair from her face.  

 

“I remember.”  

 

She might stick her tongue out at him, she can’t be sure, but Raven’s there suddenly, pulling her to standing.  When she opens her eyes, Bellamy’s gone.  

 

“Let’s visit that outhouse,” Raven is saying.  “Last one finished has to sleep next to Miller.”

 

***

 

Clarke’s used to sitting just outside of things.  It’s why she’s in the kitchen while the rest of them are in Bellamy’s living room, crowded together on the floor around a game of Apples to Apples, spilling beer on one another as their voices grow louder and their use of profanity increases.  

 

Bellamy doesn’t technically graduate until December, but he starts grad school in January and the acceptance letter seemed like reason enough to celebrate.  Kane brought a cake,  _ Congrats, Graduate _ , scribbled in pink icing on the top, and there are gifts scattered around it, wrapped in old comics and brown paper bags, all in the shape of books and pens and bags of coffee.  

 

Bellamy had opened the door when she arrived, a pink tiara atop his dark mop of curls, and he immediately looked sheepish.  “Octavia is making me wear it.”  

 

“Good.  You’ve earned it,” she’d said with only the hint of a smile, and reaching to run her hand down his arm had been automatic.  She’d drawn back when he’d flinched.  Like she’d burned him.  

 

She sighs, releasing the paper plates from their plastic prison.  It’s easier to hide in the kitchen with the cake, apparently, than it is to watch his cheeks grow pink under all the attention, smiling when he thinks no one is looking.  It makes her want things she’s lost.    

 

“I thought I’d just slice the cake to get it ready,” she justifies to Jasper when he stumbles in to grab another beer from the fridge.  

 

He sloppily raises an eyebrow.  “Don’t forget to let yourself have some fun too, okay?” he says, more serious than usual.  She grabs his hand with a squeeze and nods.    

 

“I’ll be out soon.”

 

That’s before she realizes there are dishes in the sink and crumbs on the counter, and soon she’s reorganizing the cabinets when she turns to find Bellamy leaning against the door frame.  

 

“What are you doing?” he asks.  His smile is wider than it would be if he were sober, his eyes flashing like his question might be more of a dare.  

 

“You’re missing your party.”

 

“No,  _ you’re _ missing my party.”  

 

Clarke looks down at the ground.  She doesn’t know how to respond to that, mostly because it’s true.  She’s running again, she thinks, from the blank walls and the old sweaters she used to steal, from the sag in his couch and the familiar bookshelf in his bedroom.  It’s too much, how he makes her feel.  Like her insides are swollen, her chest too tight.  Like crying and laughing all at once.   

 

“I’m not brave like you,” is all she can find to say.  

 

He nods, sticking out his bottom lip in consideration.  He’s smiling like that first day she walked into this apartment, amused and thoughtful and not sure what to do with her.  It’s her favorite.  

 

“No one is eating cake until you come show Kane how to battle at MarioKart,” he says, tilting his head all drunken and sly.  “He needs to learn from the best.”  

 

Clarke can’t help the stupid, fond smile that crosses her face.  He wants her there, and suddenly, running feels foolish.  She’s tired of missing Bellamy Blake.  

 

He crowds her space as she walks past, his breath catching when she looks up at him.  His adam’s apple bobs.  He’s nervous.  

 

“C’mon, then,” she says, and she takes his hand.  

 

The cake tastes like the strawberry milk they used to serve in elementary school, their mouths stained bright red from the dye.  The games have wound down.  Kane left a while ago with a container of leftover hummus tucked under his arm.  Eyes wet, he’d pulled Bellamy into one last hug, ruffling his hair before sneaking out the door.  When Octavia fell asleep in the chair, Lincoln had propped her on his shoulder and said a quick goodbye.    

It’s just Clarke now, Miller’s snoring on top of Monty and Raven and Jasper are tangled together on the couch.  She’s tiptoed to the door to slip on her coat.      

 

Bellamy pauses in the hallway, caught with an armful of blankets.  “You’re not going to stay?” he says and he looks flustered.  “You don’t have to - you can take the bed, I’ll sleep out here.  It’s not a problem.”

 

He’s adorable.  “No, thanks.  I called for an Uber.  It’s just -” she pauses for a second, biting her lip to find the words.  They’re the same words missing from the postcards she’d pulled together earlier, wrapped in tissue, and placed beside Kane’s cake.  “Would you like to get coffee sometime?  With me, I mean, if that’s okay?”

 

It comes out all wrong, disjointed and awkward, but Bellamy’s smiling anyway, smiling wider than she’s ever seen.  

 

“Yeah,” he nods, voice gruff.  “How about tomorrow?”

 

“I’ll text you,” Clarke says.  

  
Outside, the cold air bites at her nose, tries to creep past her collar and down her neck.  Clarke, however, can’t feel it.  She’s finally warm.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts!!!!! And comments make me write faster :)

**Author's Note:**

> This story will have 3 chapters. I am the slowest of all slow writers but will do my best to get the next chapter out reasonably soon-ish. Comments and kudos help ;) 
> 
> I hope you liked it so far!!!!!!!! Thanks for reading!!!!!!


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